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Garland Teen Turns Slime Into Six-Figure Salary

(Published Sunday, July 22, 2018)

At just 15 years old, Samantha Zumwalt is the head of her own company. The teen launched it last February after begging her mom to buy her a box of Borax to create the slime she’d seen all over the Internet.

But eventually, she got her mom to cave. It took only a weekend of creating and playing with her own gooey, sticky substances to decide there was a market for unique variations.

With her mom's blessing, Zumwalt launched "Samantha Slime Shop" on Etsy with dozens of types of slime differentiated by glitter, charms, colors, textures and even scents.

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Her first month in business, a friend was her only sale. But after sending her slime to popular Instagram accounts for review, she was flooded with sales.

“We were getting 50 to 100 orders a day. Some days we were getting more than 100 orders,” said Zumwalt.

That's when she turned to her mom Jessica Burks for help. Together they moved the business from a corner in their kitchen to a spare bedroom, eventually outgrowing both and letting "Samantha Slime Shop" operations take over both the living and dining rooms.

“I got my bachelors in accounting and my masters in business administration all while I was working full time and raising Samantha. Sometimes she’d come to class with me because I couldn’t find a sitter… I think when you’re young like that, you just soak it all up like a sponge," said Burks.

And while they don’t know how long the slime trend will hold out, for now they’re working to build the business that’s already providing Samantha a 6 figure salary.